


The Viscount's Handler; or, a Jashinist's guide to estate finances

by lilac_bramble, privatepenne



Category: Naruto
Genre: Image Heavy, M/M, Mutual Pining, character death (it's just shikamaru don't worry), did you finish Bridgerton and think But Where's The Akatsuki? here you go baby!, regency au, romantic depictions of dueling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29595765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilac_bramble/pseuds/lilac_bramble, https://archiveofourown.org/users/privatepenne/pseuds/privatepenne
Summary: London, 181X - retired naval officer Cpt. Kakuzu Taki struggles, not wholly in vain, to suppress his feelings for his irascible and societally superior companion the Viscount of Jashin. When he gets called to serve, will Hidan finally muster the courage to act? How many bodies will be left in their passionate wake?(A place for lilac_bramble and I's regency au art and fic - partly illustrated plot, part sketch dump, part one-shot fics, all ridiculously self-indulgent!)
Relationships: Hidan/Kakuzu (Naruto)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

‘You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope…’ Captain Taki is interrupted in his London home as he tries to finish a letter of a delicate nature.

Hidan teasing his old friend about his ‘lady love’, whose letter he refuses to share with him. Poor young lord isn’t used to Cpt. Taki keeping secrets from him, he’s always been able to win him over with enough cajoling!

That evening while Captain Kakuzu was peacefully winning the Senju estate at whist, Viscount Hidan managed to get into a disagreement with Asuma, 2nd Baron Sarutobi… Things escalated fast…

Cpt Kakuzu would probably have noticed the nicks that Hidan got during his fight, if his attention hadn’t been immediately diverted by an ominous Royal summons that he received once they returned to Kakuzu’s London townhouse early in the morning…

As Asuma, Baron Sarutobi, lies grievously wounded and in a raging fever following his knife fight with Viscount Hidan, his protege Shikamaru has unwisely called Hidan out to meet him in a duel. Hidan chose swords, of course… They meet at dawn in the ruined chapel on Hidan’s ancestral estate.

Captains Kakuzu and Hoshigaki have been suddenly called out of retirement to serve in the navy on short notice, but even as they’re boarding, Kakuzu’s mind is elsewhere - perhaps on the letter that he left for Viscount Hidan… Ah, maybe Hidan would have shown up at your departure like you asked him to in your letter, provided he returned your affections, if he’d opened your letter before Shikamaru Nara’s - but he didn’t, and he’s off to a duel instead of to the docks to tell you that he reciprocates your feelings before you leave..

In the now deserted chapel of Jashin, Chouji grieves for his friend, struck down by the sword of the vicious Viscount Hidan. An ill-advised challenge…

“Deidara, he - can you - Deidara, he says that - me! He loves me, too!” And then he gets to the point where Kakuzu asks him to see his ship off at the docks that morning if his feelings are returned - is it too late for Hidan to make the appointment?

“You know, it’s considered poor taste to kill children, regardless of the circumstances.”

“Nara was no child - he was certainly old enough to challenge his better to a duel.”

“Maa, 19 is still practically a baby. You see, such matters should be left to gentlemen like us. For instance, it would be entirely acceptable for me to ask for a duel, so as to save future generations from your frankly discreditable tendencies and to demand honor for my beloved people.”

“Is that a challenge?”

Lord Hatake is one of the vanishingly few swordsmen who could pose a threat to a duelist of Hidan’s calibre, but Kakuzu is 90% of Hidan’s impulse control.

After several weeks in the Channel and its surrounding ports and islands, the mail packet finally comes for the Red Dawn - Kisame with a reasonable amount of letters, including one from Itachi Uchiha catching him up with the most recent London drama, and Kakuzu with a startlingly thick stack of letters, which, he realizes with growing concern, are mostly from Hidan.

He opens them chronologically and with great trepidation, given the circumstances of his departure - since Hidan clearly didn’t feel the same way towards him as he did - but in the first letter he soon finds out that he was too hasty in his judgment.

So overcome with emotion, he almost misses the rest of the letters, which seem more and more frantic regarding some unmentioned future event that Hidan seems unwilling to tell Kakuzu about..

Finally coming into port after several weeks at sea, Captain Kakuzu catches up with a lot of post all at once - but his delight that Hidan returns his feelings is soured by the report of his involvement in yet another duel.

  
  
Utterly incensed by the news that Kakashi Hatake has challenged Hidan under the roof of his own town house, and terrified for his beloved’s fate at his hands, Kakuzu rides furiously across country to challenge Kakashi himself before their duel can take place…

After a wild trip from the Red Dawn in the English channel and across the countryside, Kakuzu arrives at the Hatake household at the break of dawn, just as a party there is breaking up.

If Kakashi won’t agree to amicably resolve his duel with Hidan, than Kakuzu lets him know that he’ll do everything in his power to prevent him from harming the Viscount - by taking to the dueling ground himself, if necessary…

No sooner has Captain Kakuzu issued his challenge to Kakashi, than Deidara - who happens to be with Sasori at the party - rushes to tell Viscount Hidan the news. Now it’s Hidan’s turn to ride across country at breakneck speed, on another one of the four huge black stallions that Kakuzu keeps stabled at his London home. 

It’s lucky that he is an exceptional horseman, having been practically born into the saddle, but will he make it in time to save Kakuzu from the folly of a pistol duel with one of the finest marksmen in England?

Rather than risk Hidan being mortally wounded by the infamous Lord Hatake, Kakuzu takes to the dueling ground outside of London himself early that morning. He is accompanied by his second, Kisame, who arrived a little bit after him, and Sasori Akasuna, who does technically have a medical degree. Kakashi has his loyal Captain Yamato Fitz-Senju as his second and the group’s lookout for authorities.. Two shots ring out - who is still standing?

There’s a lot of blood… but it’s just a flesh wound. An ashen Captain Kakuzu thinks he’s hallucinating at first as he sees Viscount Hidan galloping up the hill on the largest of his black stallions - a moment later he stumbles into his arms, all inhibitions forgotten.

As for the Viscount, almost overwhelming relief at finding him still alive mingles with horrified tenderness - he certainly can’t bring himself to reproach him.

After his duel with Kakashi, Kakuzu has allowed himself a little time to recuperate (even though he keeps trying to get up and get back to work - the prophylactic laudanum that Sasori forces on him helps a little). While his put-upon comrade Cpt. Hoshigaki sorts out a good story for why they abandoned their post, he convalesces back at his London home - with very fine company, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll be putting up more writing and drawing, new and from tumblr. We figured that if we'd be writing one-shots for this au we ought to put it on Ao3 for formatting concerns.
> 
> (Did this story make narrative sense? Not really, but neither did early 19th century novels)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-plot - an evening at the Captain's

After the whirl of parties and dinners, the eternal parade of social obligations that Kakuzu had to perform for lest he lose out on the scant social goodwill he possessed, he used to have the blissful solitude of his home to return to. A fine townhouse on New Bond Street in the most fashionable neighborhood of London, three stories tall, with a full servant’s quarters and stables at the back to make any one of his well-heeled noble neighbors jealous. The house was nearly new; he’d foreclosed on it from the Baron who built it, having admired it from afar as it went up.

It wasn’t the solitary den that it had once been. Once, years ago, he’d been able to retire to his study with a little port and finish his paperwork or take care of his personal correspondence in silence. Maybe if he had time he’d pick out a book from his impressive library and read or translate until early morning. His servants were well-trained to make as little noise as possible, gliding past him in the shadows in their all-black livery. Without much effort he could pretend that he was completely alone in his home. 

That had ended last summer. 

Two weeks’ time at Lakefell House, the Peins’ looming Oxfordshire seat, had put an end to his quiet evenings even after he returned to London. Like a burr stuck to his coat-tails he’d returned from the country trailing a tactless, untaught Viscount with him.

“Where are we to drop you off?” he’d asked the Viscount when they were nearly back in the city limits, trying to express through his voice just how much he wanted to be rid of his company. He’d spent the whole trip purposefully riling Kakuzu’s temper, extemporizing about the history of the House of Jashin, and insulting everyone in their mutual social circle, and many people outside of it. This, after having provoked Kakuzu into several heated sword fights during their stay at Lakefell. 

Sitting across from him in Kakuzu’s best carriage, both arms draped over the backs of the seat, Hidan had shrugged lazily. “Wherever you’re going. I don’t keep a house in London.”

“You idiot, where did you send your things?!” 

“I told Pein’s manservant to send them wherever yours were going,” he said with that easy, guileless look that probably let him get away with anything. “You said you wanted to be my plus-one for that gentlemen’s club that they only let the gentry into. And show me all your old toys from the war. I heard that the Sarutobis are having a dinner, I bet I could get us an invitation to it..” 

“You are not staying in my house,” Kakuzu said sternly. “Grenier’s hotel will do fine for you. I have too much work to do to keep you on leading strings.”

“Oi, I’m a grown man, I don’t need looking-after!”

“If you’re a grown man then act like it, and plan ahead before you come into town with no place set up to stay.”

“Kakuzuuu,” Hidan’d wheedled, changing his tack, swinging to the other side of the carriage to shimmy himself between the Captain and the tufted wall. “I won’t be any trouble at all, I promise. Just some nice company when you come home for supper. Deidara’ll be in town with Akasuna soon and we can tear a streak through all the ballrooms that are still open. Think of all the good it’ll do for your business, to be seen with a pack of lively young lords. Not just scary Captain Taki who holds the _ton_ by its purse-strings anymore… no, one half of an _immortal duo_ that can’t be touched by the lords of Essex..”

It was impossible to deny Hidan anything when he gave you that irresistible, uncharacteristically vulnerable look, he’d found out. And, he had to admit, he didn’t like the optics of throwing a Viscount out onto the street. If anything could make his gentry debtors less endeared to him, that might do it.

Lady Konan had asked him to keep an eye on him, and he trusted her judgment – so long as what benefited her also benefited him.

So Hidan had invited himself to come stay with him. ‘Just until the season starts, Hidan,’ became ‘until the end of the season’, then ‘until the holiday tours’, for which they had gone on together to several Great Houses, and then ‘the spring after Kakuzu’s come around to the Jashin estate,’ and then before either of them knew it they had simply become a paired set. People were surprised when one showed up to an event without the other – ‘of course we meant for him to come too, what did you think?’ They both made plans to renovate the unused dining room on Kakuzu’s second floor because Hidan wanted to host more dinners. Hidan’s mail came to Kakuzu’s house and Hidan became the subject of several entreaties to intervene in Kakuzu’s business on someone’s behalf, which the Viscount found excessively amusing.

“See, now, I’m practically a firm partner,” Hidan had laughed when he told him. “They really think I’m nicer than you!”

“You’re much easier to push around,” Kakuzu had said from across the breakfast table. “At least when I’m the one doing the pushing.” That earned him a lazy kick to the shin that he didn’t even bother moving his leg out of the way for.

That was how they spent their days in London, bickering without any real venom, occasionally working out their feelings with a round of fencing or a hard ride. He would go to work, menace his accountants as usual, then leave for home earlier than he ever had before, looking forward to spending the evening watching the Viscount make toast over the study fireplace. Kakuzu’s world before Hidan had been cold. Direct, reliable, tangible, quantifiable, colored only by the streaks of rage and spite that he let bleed through once in a while. There was no place for amusement there, no chance for anything warm and lively to survive under his hardened carapace, until this vicious young thing had clung on to him and refused to let go.

* * *

“Why do you think the Peins don’t have any children?” Hidan asked one evening.

Kakuzu didn’t look up from his letter. Hidan was probably reading that gossip rag that’d been circulating this season, rubbernecking everybody else’s drama instead of causing it himself for once.

“It isn’t any of my business,” he responded.

“Aren’t you at least curious, though? They seem so intent on challenging the old nobility, but it’s all fuss and thunder if they don’t produce an actual heir,” Hidan mused, rolling over to prop himself up on an elbow on the chaise. Kakuzu had taken to working in the parlor in the evenings, since there was nowhere for Hidan to lounge handsomely in his home office.

“They’ll appoint one eventually. They’re not too old.”

“Yeah, they’re not getting any younger, though... You reckon Pein knows how it’s even done? The mechanics of it?” Hidan made an ‘o’ with the thumb and fingers of one hand, and stuck the other pointer finger inside of it rhythmically. “Maybe you can take him aside and make sure. I mean, he’s French, you figure they just come out of the womb knowing that, but…”

He snorted. “I don’t want to think of the Marquis of Pein in any context where he’s not fully clothed. And using his propriety as a weapon, as he usually does.”

“Yeah, he does. He _is_ a fucking weapon, sometimes.”

“Hm, don’t let him hear you say that.”

Hidan stuck his tongue out at him. Kakuzu did not think about his pretty pink tongue at all. He was very invested in writing his letter.

“Anyways, even if he’s frigid or born without a cock or something, you think he’d at least try for Lady Konan’s sake. Whenever a couple can't produce an heir everyone blames the lady.” He sighed. “And it’s not like it’d be difficult to pretend to be interested for thirty seconds! She’s a fine looking woman. Statuesque, I think? That’s what they call her? She’s got a nice p-”

“ _Hidan_.”

“Alright, alright, won’t offend your delicate sensibilities.”

“Perhaps after spending some time around you and Deidara they decided that having children would be more trouble than it’s worth..”

“Please, I’d predict that any child of theirs would be the saddest, faintest, most hideously repressed creature to ever darken Lakefell’s door. Can you imagine? So proper, so prim, so holier-than-thou. Excuse me, mother, would you please be so kind as to, uh, punish me for violating the bedtime terms we agreed on? I was simply too caught up in the conduct books that Lord Pein graciously gave me for being a good little boy and not ever making my opinions known or raising my voice above a whisper..”

Kakuzu raised a brow as he folded his finished letter. “Haven’t you ever been in the room when we talk about politics? His Lordship has quite decided opinions, and he’ll proclaim them loudly.”

“Nah, I guess I’ve usually gone off to do more interesting things by that point in the night.” Hidan leaned down and picked up the cut-glass tumbler of whiskey that he’d left on the floor. “Really, though, what do you think it is? I know you and Konan are this close.” He pressed his thumb and forefinger together. “We all want to know what’s going on in that marriage.”

“The Marquis and Marchioness are polite enough to be discreet, and wise enough to understand that anything they say in confidence, even among the Akatsuki, will be all over town by the next morning.” He stood, pocketing the letter to send it on his way upstairs, and leaned over to pluck the gossip pamphlet from under Hidan’s arm. “What’s brought all this up, then, anyway? Who’s having whose child this week?”

Hidan pulled his knees to his chest and Kakuzu took the invitation to sit down next to him, getting a lap full of legs as soon as he did. “Nobody. High society’s tragically, completely un-fucked. Her Ladyship and present company included.”

Kakuzu did his best to hold back a smile as he glanced through the anonymous pamphlet before tossing it to the side. “Well, you brought it on yourself… if you wanted to bring some nice debutante home, you’d have to have a home of your own here first. I won’t tolerate you deflowering anyone under my roof.”

Hidan sighed, head lolling backwards on the roll pillow, glass resting on his chest. “What’d I want with any of them, anyways.. a bunch of absolute nothings in court gowns. Nothing between the ears except a lot of hair. I’ve got better company here.”

Kakuzu rested a hand on his knee, hoping it came off as a chaste, fatherly pat, and leaned back into the couch. What could he say to that? It was just a throwaway line. Every once in a while Hidan would casually drop something painfully sentimental into their late-night conversations and it would stick in Kakuzu’s mind for hours, like a stone in his pocket that his hand kept returning to, to turn around and smooth in his palm. But he didn’t mean it; his affectation of affection, which only came out when he was sleepy and drunk, passed quickly. Indeed he was half asleep already on the other end of the chaise.

“Not that that’s a high threshold to meet,” Kakuzu murmured. “I’ve not been accused of being congenial company before. I’m… well, you’re the first person to tolerate me for so long.”

“Ah, you’ll have to do better than all that to drive me out,” Hidan yawned. Kakuzu took the glass from off his chest before it spilled. “I think you gave up on trying to turn me out ages ago.”

“Yes. I did.” He absently fiddled with the buckle at Hidan’s breeches – old-fashioned for a young man, but Hidan did have strangely archaic tastes in so many things. “I’ll own that your company is better than none at all.”

Hidan slitted his eyes open and regarded him, a little smile playing on his lips. He knew, both from his own experience and from everyone who betrayed their frank surprise when they heard that Kakuzu had a companion that dragged him to social events, that there was nobody whose company Kakuzu preferred to absolute solitude. Letting Hidan streak through his orbit for this long was a compliment. Acknowledging it, though, for the first time, that was more than a compliment. He let Kakuzu's hand rest warmly on his knee, fiddling at the edge of his stocking affectionately. It felt like a promise.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little comics

(I like to think that Hidan and Deidara went to their fancy boys' boarding school together and are great friends - Deidara is really Hidan's only friend, while Deidara has a wide and varied social circle. At least, until Hidan meets Kakuzu and finally doesn't have to be a hanger-on anymore..)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The morning after Kakuzu's duel with Kakashi

Every fiber of his body hurt in some way. The parts that weren’t alive with active pain were sore and tense, the sort of cold stiffness that he associated with sleeping abovedeck overnight. It gave him the sensation that each joint was bound and that to move them, to try to lift a limb, would require Herculean effort.

The worst of it radiated out from his right shoulder, where every breath pulled macerated flesh and muscle of his gunshot wound this way and that no matter how shallowly he tried to breathe. Rays of pain fanned out to the top of his right arm, which was tucked in a sling, and across his body to the back of his scapula.

So this was why everyone in the service was so eager not to get shot, he thought. Imagining this, but rolled into a hammock belowdecks in the steaming summer heat, surrounded by the press of your crewmates, the stench of blood and vomit, being bumped and jostled at every second.. No small wonder that sailors took such pains to avoid it. Only a madman would put himself in the way of a bullet for something as trifling as _honor_.

His head felt rather like a scooped-out pumpkin. Yesterday’s laudanum had worn off during the night and left him feeling dry and feverish and dearly in need of a drink of water. He must have slept with his mouth open...

But there was a warm weight across his left side that kept him from rolling over and getting his bedside water pitcher. An arm wrapped tightly around him and a nose pressed into his shoulder. And that, and the recollection of his circumstances, suddenly made everything wonderful.

As long as he took the thinnest of breaths his shoulder didn’t hurt so badly and he could focus on the rise and fall of Hidan’s chest instead. Each exhale lifted a translucent cloud of dust from the bedclothes, visible only through the buttery gold light slicing through the window of Kakuzu’s previously abandoned bedroom. It disappeared into the shadows above them like smoke.

He could only see the top of Hidan’s silvery head; Kakuzu had gotten his left arm wrapped around him, and in return he’d curled up against him and tucked his head up against his shoulder. He was lying on top of the blankets, though, still in everything that he had been wearing yesterday, just without his coat. The sleeves of his shirt were still dashed with Kakuzu’s blood, now rusty brown. How had he…?

That’s right; after the duel, Kisame and Sasori had hurried him into Sasori’s carriage, worried about the possibility of being caught by the authorities. Hidan had pushed his way in, too, and then Kisame had generously volunteered to instead ride Kakuzu’s horse, which Hidan had ‘borrowed’ on his way over. Sasori had handed Hidan a bundle of linens to bolster his field dressing of Kakuzu’s bullet wound and told him not to let him bleed on the upholstery.

Kakuzu had been dizzy with shock - for many reasons - and all that he was capable of doing at that point was lean into Hidan’s hands swaddling his bleeding shoulder, blearily watching his face, drawn tight with anger and concern and uncharacteristic fear. God, he really was handsome, he’d thought, ridiculously.

They’d ended up at Kakuzu’s home somehow - everything after the laudanum that Sasori had given him at the city limits was a prickly, hazy wash of color.

And now it was quiet. Uncomfortably warm, dry, close, and brilliantly full of Hidan wrapped around him, drooling a little into his shirt.

He blinked a few times, his eyes gritty and tacky with sleep, before settling on closing them again. It made his head hurt less even though he was still terribly thirsty. After two months at sea it was a little nice to come home and sleep in one’s own bed, albeit a dusty one, smell the familiar linens, lie in a room that didn’t drift up and down.

There was a shuffling outside the bedroom and the door opened.

Lord Akasuna - Sasori, to their small circle - came clinking in with his armamentarium without regard for whether either of them were sleeping. Kakuzu saw a flash of brilliant blond as Deidara poked his head around the doorway after him and he raised two fingers off of the bed in greeting. Deidara, seemingly satisfied with the assurance that he and the Viscount were still alive, disappeared. Sasori set his ornate leather surgeon’s valise on the chest of drawers at the base of the bed and turned to glower down at Kakuzu, who felt absurdly like a child about to get scolded. With great energy he was able to press a finger of his free hand to his lips and gesture down towards Hidan, still sleeping.

“You’re not going to get out of this by relying on him,” Sasori said levelly, but softly. He unlatched the box and pulled out a set of tincture bottles and supplies. “I need to check on your shoulder. How is it feeling?”

“Uncomfortable.”

“You refused to take a draught for the evening. I’m not surprised.”

“I wanted to keep a clear head. I was able to sleep a little anyways.”

Hidan stirred as Sasori circled around to Kakuzu’s side and set about untying his sling. If he hadn’t been born the scion of one of the oldest houses in England, Sasori might have made a fine physician. As it stood now medical science was an intense hobby of his, which his fortune gave him leave to indulge in freely. It wouldn’t have been _too_ hard to find a surgeon who wouldn’t turn Kakuzu or Lord Hatake in to the authorities for dueling - it was still technically illegal, and it would look especially bad with Kakuzu having left his naval post so precipitously - but he admitted that he was grateful to be tended to by someone he knew. They’d been acquaintances long before the Akatsuki club was established, not that you could tell from Sasori’s boyish appearance. Only the terse parentheses of wrinkles around his mouth gave his age away.

Hidan stirred, sniffed and looked up blearily. His hair was going every-which-way and his collar had left a crease on his cheek. 

“Oi,” he murmured, glancing up at Kakuzu’s face before watching Sasori bunch up Kakuzu’s sleeve and undo the bloodstained wrappings around the bullet wound. “What’s going on?”

“He’s just checking on me,” Kakuzu murmured stiffly. He was glad Sasori wasn’t trying to undo him slowly and drag it out for the sake of sparing him some kind of acute agony, but he was being _very_ brisk in his handling. Kakuzu had to concentrate wholly on not responding to the symphony of pain; the rumbling base of the swollen muscles and fascia, the rich strings section of the superficial flesh being handled, and the bright airy strain of the edges of the wound getting caught on the crusted dressing as it was taken off. He forced himself to breathe evenly. Hidan was watching him.

“Does it hurt?”

“A little.”

Sasori unpinned a roll of fresh white bandage and a pad of medical lint from his valise. “It’s too early to tell if purulent gangrene has set in,” he clicked his tongue disappointedly. “But it’s looking like it’s clean, and you’re running a healthy quick fever. I won’t have to reopen it if the stitches hold.”

Kakuzu pointedly didn’t look at it. He could countenance the pain, barely, the fever, easily, but he didn’t want to see how badly he’d mangled his body. It’d be just another scar one day, one among many others that he’d collected, and he’d be able to look at it as much as he wanted. Hidan sat up to watch Sasori work though, and his face blanched.

“Bloody hell, Kakuzu! What, was it cannonballs at 10 paces?”

“It’s not the worst I’ve seen,” Sasori said. “Not by far. And it’s much neater for not having had to go in and retrieve the bullet. I’d heard about using sodium perchlorate for debridement, but I’d never had the opportunity to use it on the field..” Kakuzu felt him wrapping it up again as he continued to extemporize and lifted his arm, gritting his teeth from the effort of not flinching. Sasori supported it as he wrapped the bandage about him, then set it down and re-tied his splint.

“I’ll come back this evening and make sure that there’s no suppuration,” he finished. He unscrewed one of his vials and poured an extra thimbleful of it into the half-full glass of brandy that he’d left at Kakuzu’s bedside yesterday. “Consider the laudanum. I can hear your teeth grinding from here.”

“Thank you, _doctor_.”

With his normal air of having been inconvenienced, Sasori packed up his valise. Kakuzu focused on breathing - in and out, deliberately. He felt warm and prickly all over and he hadn’t even had any of the draught. Hidan looked down at him, a veil of concern passing over his face, and he reached out to press the back of his hand to Kakuzu’s temple. It was frigid.

“It’s okay that he’s burning up like this?”

“It’s the body’s natural response to shock,” Sasori said, closing the latch. “His nerves are simply over-excited. If he gets cold or starts turning blue, come get me - or better yet, don’t, it’ll be too late. But do make sure he drinks his medicine, I don’t care if he doesn’t like feeling ‘foggy’. He’ll have to deal with it.”

Kakuzu grunted in opposition, but Sasori was already on his way out the door. He wanted to ask him what was going on outside - where Kisame was, if Lord Hatake was still alive, how much trouble he’d gotten himself into abandoning the ranks - but he didn’t have the energy to catch him before the door closed. Hidan watched Sasori go, his brow furrowed, in a sort of a half-pout that Kakuzu knew meant that he was unhappy but couldn’t figure out what he was unhappy about.

Kakuzu closed his eyes. He hurt too much to pry any further. He might as well get back to sleep before Hidan started up on whatever it was that was bothering him.

“You’re fucking unbelievable.” Hidan finally said. Kakuzu, chagrined, cracked his eyes back open. Hidan’s jaw was tight and he was staring off to the other side of the room. 

“You had the absolute gall - I can’t believe it. After lecturing me every day - every hour - about being _responsible_ and then the second things go off even a little bit, you - what, come running back to steal my duel? I could’ve handled it! Jesus wept, I’ve HAD duels before! I had it handled!”

“You idiot, how many times are you going to get lucky and call it skill before you get killed?”

“I HAVE skill! And more than that, I’ve got my honor as a gentleman to maintain!”

Kakuzu snorted. “A fool who would die for his honor is better off dead. Like that was ever anything more than an excuse to draw blood when you felt like it, anyway.”

“Oi, what’s your excuse, then?” Hidan cried, jabbing a finger towards him accusingly. “You’ve never had a proper fucking duel in your life but suddenly one of mine’s important enough to snatch out from under me like I’m some Eaton student that can’t be trusted to manage his own damn business! Please, fucking enlighten me!”

“You’re actually angry that I stole a duel from you,” Kakuzu said. If he were less tired he would have sneered, or yelled, but it took the full of his energy just to stay present in the conversation.

“I’m fucking furious that you got hurt because you didn’t trust me to manage my own fucking concerns!”

“Hidan, you killed a member of the House of Peers, antagonized the rest of the Akatsuki and entangled yourself in an _affair d’honor_ with the best swordsman in the country. Can you really esteem yourself competent to manage your own matters?”

“It’s exactly how I went on before I met you, and it worked out fine for me! I don’t need you looking over my shoulder every damn second, I was managing fine before you decided to be my fucking - my ..”

Kakuzu snorted. “You were barely at your majority when you met me. You didn’t have much time to mess things up.”

Hidan seemed to realize, suddenly, how tense with discomfort Kakuzu was, eyes closed, braced against the bed. The mattress shifted. Kakuzu felt the suggestion of cool fingers at his face again, pushing a slip of hair from the bridge of his nose and tucking it back, and then brushing the arc of his cheek. Kakuzu looked up at him and Hidan’s eyes flickered down as soon as they met. His hand withdrew and he pulled back to sitting on top of the coverlet.

“You could’ve _died_. I thought.. I just kept thinking - the worst case - I wouldn’t get to you in time…” He pressed his hand against his mouth.

“Hidan…”

Hidan shook his head. “Don’t start, okay? I know I scotched it. I knew it even while I was doing it all after you left.” He leaned over his knees. “I just… you were gone, and you didn’t write back to me, and I... guess I was just used to having you behind me to collar me and drag me off into a closet and shake me whenever I was doing something stupid. Without you it felt like - hell, what does it matter? You ran off without me, and I didn’t even get your damn letter until your ship had already left and you probably thought I was some heartless little idiot like everybody else does.” His voice was muffled. “Who didn’t even bother to show up to see you off after you gave him a heartfelt fucking confessional. And then I wrote and I wrote and you _never wrote back_.”

Kakuzu reached out and brushed his fingers against the back of his waistcoat, pressing just enough for him to feel. “There is a war going on, you know. Your letters were held up for weeks. I got them all as one parcel.”

Hidan groaned. “God, I must have sounded like an absolute fucking nutter reading them all at once. I was really losing my head over here, you know that?”

“I gathered.”

A moment of hazy silence. Everything felt half-real, even without the veil of morphine. He felt both uncomfortably warm and dry and fever-chilled, but also - he was here with Hidan, Hidan who had been here the whole time, Hidan who had filled his life with passionate energy and purpose beyond spite and momentum - that filled him with a different kind of prickling heat and energy. Yes, he had gotten his letters, in a two-inch-thick parcel from the mail dinghy while they were in port, and he had devoured every letter of every letter like a starving man even as each one seemed to show Hidan getting more and more erratic and despondent but somehow just as in love as he was. 

“You meant it, didn’t you? I mean, it didn’t feel like something you’d do. Dropping a love letter-“ Hidan choked over that word, love, “and then running off so you didn’t have to deal with the consequences. It just wasn’t like you.”

“I know,” Kakuzu breathed. “I’m… sorry. I truly didn’t think that it could end with anything else but estrangement. Everyone would assume that I was doing it for your title - a selfish old bastard trying to buy a Viscountage from a lord who has his choice of everybody else in the world. This way if I died in action, at least _you’d_ know that it was wholly selfless. I couldn’t imagine that you’d... and you do, right?”

“Of course I fucking do,” Hidan said, looking up at him now. “D’you think that _I’d_ think that you’d do something like that? Lie about your feelings to grab a title? You don’t know yourself half as well as you think you do. I know you wouldn’t lie like that, not to me. You’re the only person that treats me... like a person. Not the antagonist of a stupid shilling play that just wants to drink and fight and cause trouble.” He leaned back a little against Kakuzu’s fingers. “I mean, I like doing that and all, but… only when you’re here you keep me from going so far. I just thought that you saw me as, I don’t know, a child that you had to look after, not a lover. You always went on about my leading-strings..”

Kakuzu smiled a bit. “Well. You do need looking after, you’ve made that abundantly clear.”

“Oi, you were the one who up and left me alone! With a stupid letter instead of telling me how you felt! Coward!”

“You’ll have to take that up with Bonaparte. He really has it out for you, starting a war like that..”

Hidan snorted and flopped down next to Kakuzu, who folded his hand against his own chest. There was a moment of heavy silence. It felt like the room was taking a deep inhalation. Then Hidan rolled over so he was facing Kakuzu, his head tucked in the crook of his elbow, lips pursed a little bit. A full six inches between them. Ridiculous, that things should be so nervous between them now. They’d been living more or less as a couple for over a year, they’d shared a bed like this at inns and woken up on top of each other, with no discomfort (although Kakuzu had kept those memories for his private business later on.) And now, at least in writing, they’d laid themselves bare to one another. 

“Bugger Bonaparte. And the navy, for that matter. I’m seriously not letting you go back now. You’re never going to be rid of me, I don’t care if they send the Crown after you.” He reached out across him and touched the hand of his injured arm. “I bet Akasuna can vouch that you’re not good for duty, can’t he? They can't drag you back out to sea. You’re _mine_.”

Now there were only a few breaths between them. Kakuzu couldn’t remember much about their embrace on the dueling field yesterday - had he kissed him, like he’d so often dreamed about? Did he clasp him to his bloodied chest so hard that they couldn’t be separated? The whole incident was kaleidoscope-fragmented in his mind. He reached up to the back of Hidan’s head, keeping him hovering over him, feeling his breath hitch and watching his rich reddish brown eyes darken with excitement.

“And they call _me_ proprietary,” Kakuzu murmured, sliding his fingers through the Viscount’s hair and pulling him down over him to press their lips together.

It was a chaste kind of kiss, considering their reputations, starting as a firm, dry press of lips. Hidan’s breath rasped against the side of his face - right, he hadn’t shaved in a few days, he was halfway to a beard now. He didn’t seem to mind, though, angling his head a little more so he could press his lips to Kakuzu’s again. It felt as though the bottom had dropped out of Kakuzu’s chest, that his whole sphere of awareness contracted to this, now, the hand on his chest and the sound of breath, the smell of Hidan’s aftershave, the softness of the mouth that he’d thought about for years.

A thousand times that he’d wanted to kiss him like this, a thousand places, a million passing impulses to be made good on here now. He couldn’t bite back a noise of appreciation.

Hidan gasped a little and hummed against him, mouthing at Kakuzu’s lower lip as Kakuzu ran his fingers over his scalp. A warm, wet slip of tongue pressed against his lower lip, so he slotted his mouth open, heart in his throat, eager to somehow get closer to him. Hidan tasted clean and sweet and hot and god, Kakuzu wanted to pull him down against him, feel his slim strong frame pressed on top of him from lips to ankle, he wanted more, he wanted every part of him, he wanted to consume him completely..

Hidan slipped his hand across Kakuzu’s chest, pressing up towards his shoulder - and inadvertently slid into the edge of his wound. Kakuzu drew back, hissing in pain, inadvertently yanking Hidan’s hair back.

“Ah - that's still tender-“

Hidan dropped his head down to Kakuzu’s opposite shoulder. He was giggling, then pressing his lips against Kakuzu’s neck, pulling down the collar of his linen shirt. 

“Knew it hurt more than you let on.”

“You little git, was that on purpose?”

“No, it wasn’t, I promise,” Hidan murmured, but Kakuzu could hear his mirthful smile. “But if you wanna pull my hair like that again, I won’t complain.”

Kakuzu sighed, gently pulling Hidan back to face him as Hidan slipped his arms around his neck and situated himself more comfortably. 

“Of course you’d like that.” It would explain why Hidan would always act up at parties they went to together - a sure way to get Kakuzu to manhandle him away from whoever he was antagonizing and give him a warning swat. He’d probably given him years worth of material for his intimate dealings. He gave his hair a teasing tug just to see Hidan grin down breathlessly at him, then lean down and smother him with kiss after kiss again, like waves crashing against rocks, as the circuitous walls that they had built between themselves these past years crumbled.

The impulsive little pugilist had meant it, then, that stack of letters where he scrawled line after line calling Kakuzu a thick-headed fool for not seeing what a fool Hidan was for him - that every casual endearment and lingering look and charged fencing match that Kakuzu had read into, and then scoffed at himself for reading into, had been intentional and reciprocated. He regarded it with detached wonderment as he pressed Hidan close and received his barrage of kisses, thin-lipped from how wide he was smiling.

Sasori should figure out how to bottle this feeling and put it in a tincture. There was something that could out-compete laudanum, he thought as he slipped an arm around Hidan, who was making himself comfortable on Kakuzu’s chest without leaning on his injured side. Enough of this, and he felt as though he’d feel as good as new by evening - so long as he got this treatment for a good long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kisame comes in 10 mins later after busting his ass to get Kakuzu off the navy shitlist for abandoning his post and these gents can't even leave a stocking on the doorknob... F in the chat for Captain Hoshigaki :(


End file.
